With ninety-seven percent of passengers carrying a phone,
laptop or tablet when they travel, the demand for inflight
broadband communications and entertainment has never been
greater. While passengers want expanded entertainment
options, service providers and airlines are grappling with
how to quickly integrate satellite technology to satisfy
their customer’s burgeoning requirements, all while
balancing operational budget realities.
Intelsat S.A. has introduced IntelsatOne Flex for
distribution partners serving the commercial air transport
market. IntelsatOne Flex aggregates Intelsat’s global and
Intelsat EpicNG high throughput satellite (HTS)
fleet and the IntelsatOne terrestrial network into a
simplified ecosystem that enables Intelsat’s distribution
partners to easily and cost efficiently scale their service
delivery capability to meet emerging inflight demands.
An enterprise grade, customizable “Wholesale Mbps”,
managed mobility service; IntelsatOne Flex allows Intelsat’s
distribution partners and their aeronautical customers to
access bandwidth when and where it is needed the most
without the complexity of managing multiple beams and
satellites. In addition, it provides tiered Committed
Information Rate (CIR)plans that mean Intelsat
distribution partners can offer unique and tailored services
to the air transport sector.
Christopher Baugh, President, NSR stated, “With high
throughput satellite technology forthcoming, the
inflight-communications and entertainment market is poised
to take off. We anticipate that the number of global
aeronautical satcom units will increase from 47,500 units in
2014 to 95,500 units by the end of 2024. In order to capture
this market growth, aeronautical service providers and
airlines will benefit greatly from having this new
technology in their networks.”
James Collett, Head of Mobility and Energy Services,
Intelsat, said, “Inflight entertainment is no longer a nice
to have element for airlines today. Passengers require the
same level of connectivity that they would receive at home
or in the office. This leaves many airlines and their
distribution partners needing to rapidly invest in new
technology to meet growing bandwidth demands, satisfy the
needs of passengers and capture revenue growth. However,
integrating new technology can be a complex process and
choosing the wrong network, a costly mistake. With
IntelsatOne Flex, aeronautical distribution partners have a
new option that provides a flexible operational environment
that easily scales to meet growing broadband requirements
optimizes bandwidth allocations and aligns costs with
revenue demands. Importantly, to take advantage of the
power, accessibility and efficiency of Intelsat EpicNG,
aeronautical distribution partners can easily integrate high
throughput technology into existing networks with minimal
capital expenditure and provide a platform that will support
their technology requirements well into the future.”
